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misterspokes t1_itvhonl wrote

Reply to comment by Accurate-Historian-7 in Young voters are so important by mooscaretaker

Term Limits tend to be well-meaning but bad for government as a whole as you end up with an entire support structure of staffers and such that constantly know more about the inner workings of the policy levers than the cycling elected officials, forming a shadow government.

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Kelruss t1_itvxltb wrote

So, I agree with the first part of your statement (term limits are bad), but your rationale is weak.

First, Congress has defunded its own staff capacity since the Gingrich era, so the ability of Congressional staffers to become a "shadow government" is limited.

Second, you actually want a set of staffers with deep expertise in what they do. Like, that's good for government; experienced people who know how to move bills through committee can greatly enhance a young congressperson's ability to pass legislation. Congress' own decision to weaken this is a massive problem, and it's part of why more and more power has concentrated in the hands of party leadership in Congress, because they have the best staff.

Third, you do not have to worry about a shadow government. The US has two branches full capable of usurping Congressional power all on their own; the President and the Supreme Court. And that's part of what's actually occurred. As Congress gets weaker and less capable of making decisions, more and more policymaking is made by the President (via executive order) or the Court (via decisions). This is a really bad outcome. The Constitution only provides for one deliberative, decision-making body: the United States Congress.

Term limits stand to worsen all the current effects, as they generally have in states that have adopted them. The fear here should not be that some anonymous staffers are running the government from within Congress, it's that the two least-representative and least-transparent branches of government will be setting policy.

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Proof-Variation7005 t1_itwzntj wrote

>Congress has defunded its own staff capacity since the Gingrich era, so the ability of Congressional staffers to become a "shadow government" is limited.

More than staffs of congress, I'd worry that legislation is basically going to be dictated by industry interests.

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Kelruss t1_itx2w6d wrote

This is, in fact, something that occurs more frequently in state legislatures that have enacted term limits. With less experienced legislators, they became more reliant on lobbyists of all types to actually draft legislation, which leads to a lot more corporate legislation.

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do_not_engage t1_itwkeik wrote

I don't see how that's a problem? The politicians job is to use the knowledge of that staff to accomplish their stated goals. The staff knowing more than the politician isn't... bad. Unless the goal is just to make sure the politician in question is always the smartest person in the room by removing all the other smart people...

Edit: Oh i see

> forming a shadow government

That's not what a shadow government is, because if the elected official feels that way, they can always fire their staff members. Shadow government can't just be fired by an elected official. They are the people runing agencies - without term limits OR having been elected.

Term limits on un-elected agency positions would ALSO stop shadow government as well as solve the generation gap problem.

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Proof-Variation7005 t1_itvo67m wrote

>Term Limits tend to be well-meaning but bad for government as a whole as you end up with an entire support structure of staffers and such that constantly know more about the inner workings of the policy levers than the cycling elected officials, forming a shadow government.

There are not enough upvotes in the world for how dead accurate this is. Every time I see a politician/pundit/person I like and respect be on board with term limits, a part of my soul dies. It's the ultimate "nice idea unless you think about about it" idea that solves nothing and makes existing problems even worse.

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misterspokes t1_itvqp38 wrote

It "works" in the Executive because the entire job is managing a legacy bureaucracy and most of the people who get into the position have met and interacted with most of the ones that can't easily be replaced.

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Proof-Variation7005 t1_itvw791 wrote

I'd almost argue that it's not even great in the executive branch. It was an overcorrection from a wildly popular president that couldn't be unseated until he died in office and a wildly unpopular vice president took over.

To me, it's just inherently undemocratic to automatically disqualify a choice that might be the most popular one. I could see the logic a little better for a governor but for the U.S. Presidency, most people would not even want to keep going after 2 full terms. Maybe if you had the double-whammy of a world war and a great depression again, I could see someone not wanting to abandon ship in crisis, but that job would burn most people out.

If you look at the 2 term presidents after FDR, none of them even would've tried to go for a 3rd term if the option was there. It's a self correcting problem federally because that job has stress factors none of us can imagine.

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misterspokes t1_itvws61 wrote

Indeed, but it's still acceptable in the position. Expanding the house and instituting rotating benches in the Federal Court system would go a long way in fixing the things we claim we want term limits for.

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